Shipping experience and Cdiscount

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💼 Context:

Given the sales growth of E-commerce in the local market of France, UX researchers are interested in the online shopping experience, especially about the phase of shipping, and would like to identify users' top concerns by studying Cdiscount, a well-known French marketplace.

🌐 Scale and Methodology:

10 participants (French customers with an average age of 31 yrs old shop online at least once per month) are invited to purchase freely an article <30kg, and to choose the shipping method adapted to their own situation. The test is divided into three parts:

1. Screen record of an end-to-end online shopping journey including tester's live verbal comments
2. Self-interview upon parcel's arrival by recording a small mobile video
3. Online survey for the overall experience.

Screenshot of shipping page on Cdiscount

🎯 Objectives:

• Identify users’ pain points and expectations about shipping
• Identify the best practices for E-commerce players

Timeline of the project

User journey map

💡Key learnings about shipping experience:

• French users prefer multiple shipping choices (usually relais pick-up + home delivery) with a reasonable price (in France, for an article <30kg, shipping rate starting from 3,99 euros is considered excessive, and today French online shoppers are quite price-sensitive)
• Once the article is purchased, users expect an SAV step by step. A direct refund by credit card in case of a canceled parcel is highly appreciated.
• French users within the sample are not obsessed with express service: when purchasing discounted offers, they are aware of longer shipping window. However, the shipping delay is expected to be the same as announced on the shipping page and confirmation email.
• A French user who has a bad shipping experience (either with the platform or seller/carrier) will downgrade the overall experience on the E-commerce website. Most of the time, a real satisfactory shopping experience counts more than the "Made-in-France" label.

📌Other insights:

• Top 3 of the most visited websites mentioned by the sample: Amazon, Fnac, Cdiscount (good shipping experience is one of the major reasons for which users favor Amazon)
• Most of the testers use the search bar of the home page to identify articles and usually make their decision within the articles presented on the first page of the search result, and many use the following filters: "free shipping", "shipped by Cdiscount", "customer review"